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From: Erik Naggum
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: what is false
Date: 13 Dec 2002 02:48:17 +0000
Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway
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* Greg Menke
| Highly portable "ISO" code is easy until you start doing
| complicated things or actually try to use operating system features
Operating system features are not part of the ISO C standard.
| Then you'll really enjoy how portable CL is.
My experience is that C code that conforms to its standard is /way/
more portable than Common Lisp code that conforms to its standard.
Lest there be any confusion about where I stand on this: /it pisses
me off/ that Common Lisp system vendors have not just moved past
the point where /everyone/ faithfully implements the standard. I
have given up reporting conformance bugs, since conforming to the
specification might break some paying customer's code. There are
enough gratuitous incompatibilities between the Common Lisp systems
and enough unimplemented standard behavior that you cannot program
according to the specification and expect it to behave correctly.
You must in effect always program to the particular implementation.
Some vendors actually consider this a feature and argue that you
have to program to the particular implementation, anyway, which
does nothing but piss me off further. It is like arguing that you
might as well break some laws because you cannot have laws for
everything. Playing with a particular Common Lisp system is fun,
but playing with several is not fun, as it forces me to be conscious
of a large number of highly irrelevant minor issues, which is the
exact opposite of the purpose of a standard.
--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.